A couple of hours after they humiliated the Phoenix Suns in a 138-89 win, the Oklahoma City Thunder learned who they will face in Las Vegas. It’ll be against a team they’re familiar with and the storylines will be easy to talk about.
The Thunder will play the San Antonio Spurs in the 2025 NBA Cup semifinals on Saturday, Dec. 13. Both teams will travel to Las Vegas as the in-season tournament is down to four teams. This will be the first matchup of the season between the two squads.
The Spurs pulled off the upset 132-119 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. Stephon Castle had 30 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. De’Aaron Fox finished with 20 points.
Funny enough, the Thunder will get familiar with the Spurs for the rest of December. They will travel to San Antonio for a game on Tuesday, Dec. 23. A couple of days later, OKC will host them for a Christmas matchup on Thursday, Dec. 25.
That’s three games between the Thunder and Spurs in 12 days. After that, they have two more matchups on Jan. 13 and Feb. 4. In total, OKC and San Antonio will play each other five times. Such comes with the territory of the NBA Cup format.
It’ll be interesting to see if Victor Wembanyama will be ready by the 2025 NBA Cup semifinals. He’s missed the last 12 games with a calf strain. If he can go, it’ll be a fun chapter to add to his rivalry against Chet Holmgren. If not, the Thunder will have the leg-up.
Out East, the Orlando Magic and New York Knicks are the other NBA Cup semifinals. The 2025 NBA Cup finals will be played on Tuesday, Dec. 16. As a reminder, the winning team will see every player receive a $530K grand prize. The runner-up will get $212K per player. The semifinal losers will get $107K per player.
